Collecting Carnival Glass Salt Shakers
By Scott Beale
When I first heard of OLD carnival glass salt shakers, it was about 28 years ago when I
first started collecting carnival glass. They were so hard to come by and I never had any
in my collection. Back in 1994 I bought my first Victorian Art Glass salt shaker and 20
years later I’m still collecting.
My first exposure to carnival glass salt shakers was in the corn pattern. The first version
is an iridized version of the Maize condiment set. It’s probably not really considered
carnival glass in the pure sense, but they are iridized and extremely rare with the iridized
base holder. The second is what carnival glass collectors call the “Corn Bottle”. I believe
however, that the corn bottle shaker is not really be a salt shaker but a bottle that had a
small cork for the top. I suspect that will be a point of discussion forever among shaker
collectors. There are examples with 2 piece tops attached that fit rather well but I do not
believe they are original.
Carnival glass salt shakers are hard to find due to the fact, in my opinion, that fancy art
glass shakers fell out of favor about the time carnival glass became popular. This also
applies to Toothpick Holders. There are a few patterns known in carnival glass and are
difficult to come by. The patterns that I’m aware of are “Soda Gold” probably the easiest
to come by, some other patterns are “Shell and Seaweed” and Challinor, Taylor “Square”
shakers in various patterns. The patterns are, “Beaded Oval Mirror”, “Seashell”,
“Horseshoe & Astor”, “Crossroads Double”, and “Square S”. Some of the Crossroads
Double are very convincing and others are rather obvious that they are contemporary.
Shell and Seaweed
Square Shakers
The Shell and Seaweed pattern is a mystery to me and I don’t know of too many
examples. The only colors I’ve seen are Marigold on Moonstone, straight Marigold, and
Amethyst. It took me about 20 years or so to find those three examples!
The Challinor pieces are very rare and only a handful are known that I’m aware of. In
addition, Challinor shakers generally come in opaque and slag colors. Clear colors are
very rare and seldom seen. The carnival glass Challinor shakers are all clear colors that
I’m aware of!
Octagon
Some other interesting patterns are the Molded “Prescut” type patterns in “Octagon” and
Aztec. Another interesting shaker is the “Xray” pattern and an enameled footed shaker in
marigold as well as the Colonial pattern. I suspect others may surface too. These shakers
come in many known carnival glass colors. There are examples of Marigold, Purple,
Green, and Blue. With the exception of Marigold, which has a base glass of clear, all
other colors are referred to by the base glass color it possesses. The color of the
iridescence will vary.
I’m sure there are others and some other unknowns may show up in the future.
The interesting thing about carnival glass salt shakers is that some of these shakers seem
to show up in patterns (Victorian era patterns) by manufacturers that we thought never
made carnival glass. That really makes you think where did these shakers come from and
when were they really made? Were they made prior to the real production of carnival
glass as we know it? (1907 to around 1920 or so) Or were these patterns made again by
another manufacturer during the carnival glass period who may have acquired the moulds
through glass company consolidation or even some of these pieces were iridized later on
in their lives.
Many people are of the school that if a piece of carnival glass is iridized on the bottom
it’s not old. I’m not convinced totally convinced of that, because known old carnival
glass shakers in the “Soda Gold” pattern (some) do have iridescence on the bottom of
them. I believe that carnival glass pieces are not generally iridized on their bottoms
because they possessed a “collar” base. This base was designed to accept a “Snap”, a
device that held the piece during production and when the piece was iridized, the snap
prevented the iridescence from covering that area. Shakers however, where mostly mould
blown and were held from the top during production therefore, the piece can be totally
sprayed with the solution that produced its iridescence.
There seems to be one exception to this rule with shakers. The Shell & Seaweed shakers
do have a collar base, very small however, but its there and the Marigold on Moonstone
is not iridized on the bottom but the Purple and Marigold are. So, how does that figure
into the theories.
Mason Jar
I recently purchased a pair of “Mason Jar” shakers with old zinc lids. They are iridized in
a marigold finish. These are mention in and article by the Fry’s in their great carnival
glass website as being iridized in “Mineral Bath” marigold which was done in Marlin
Texas in the early 1900s. This was done by exposing the glass to a highly “Mineralized”
water that would stain the glass a marigold color. I have seen a few sets of carnival glass
shakers with this finish which tends to be a lighter honey colored iridized finish which is
quite attractive. I would tend to lean towards the idea that they may have been iridized in
Marlin, Texas.
Not to add further confusion to this subject, I recently purchased a mustard jar in a smoke
iridescence, pattern unknown to me. I’ve showed it to many people for their thoughts and
I’ve received feedback from everything from wow, I’ve never seen anything like that
before, that it was exposed to some kind of chemical, sat in water for a long time, to it
was in a fire. Again, who knows and the mystery goes on. No matter what this mustard is,
it is highly unusual to say the least! It’s just food for thought and I’m sure many of you
have different opinions. But whatever your thoughts are, it’s an interesting subject.
One noted carnival glass researcher and author had this to say about the Challinor
shakers.
“Challinor Taylor was one of the member factories of the U.S.Glass Co. combine.
By 1900, Challinor Taylor was no longer operating. Their moulds were transferred
to other U.S.Glass member factories still in operation. The first Carnival Glass was
not introduced to the market until 1907 (by Fenton). The U.S. Glass Co. also made
iridescent ware & most of theirs was produced in the 1910-1920 period, at their
Glassport, PA plant and at the Tiffin plant. Any Carnival Glass examples of
Challinor Taylor patterns & pieces were made there & not by Challinor Taylor
themselves.”
Another interesting comment that was told to me was by a well known shaker collector
and art glass dealer (the late) Bob Bruce pertaining to a couple shakers he had found.
“The first carnival shakers we bought were from Fay Crider. They were the Aztec
Marigold. It was a long time ago and we had no idea if they were something or
not. But Fay was a knowledgeable dealer so we trusted her as we had bought
from her before in the Antique Trader. We took them to the first convention we
went to thinking all would be excited to see them. To our surprise, no one was
excited nor did anyone know anything about them. We contacted several carnival
collectors and wrote to an author of one of the books at the time. We either got no
response or no knowledge of them from anyone. So, we gave up, put them in the
display and enjoyed them. Later we got the X Ray carnival shaker. We were
concerned if it was real or not. Then we saw a table set in light marigold. So, then
we felt it was indeed real. But, later, we heard that Terry Crider (her son, who you
may know) would "carnivalize" a piece of glass for collectors. We never verified
that story but thought we would write him to inquire if he ever did shakers. But,
that never got high on our priority list so we never did it. After finding the
Challinor shakers we felt more strongly that they were all real Victorian.”
Bob Bruce was a vast wealth of knowledge for me as I learned about shaker collecting. I
will forever value the advice, education, and comments that he gave me and he is
certainly missed.
The most interesting thing that I noticed, is that carnival glass collectors really don’t
come across them and really don’t know much about them. I have asked a couple of old
time collectors of carnival glass and they really had no information to lend. The only
shakers that where mentioned in carnival glass by carnival glass collectors are the “Soda
Gold” shakers, in my opinion the most common and the Imperial “Octagon” shakers
produced in Marigold and Amethyst.
New patterns show up from time to time. The mystery is their age and examining them
closely may give a clue to their age but it may not be definitive conclusion.
Colonial Panel
Dogwood
But one thing I think we can all agree upon and that is they are some of the rarest
shakers to be collected. However, caution must be used when collecting these shakers
and that there are a lot of reproductions out there! Knowledge is power and know what
you are doing before looking for these rare little items.
This subject can generate a lot of opinions and discussion. There is much speculation as
to where many of these shakers have come from. Many may say there are no real OLD
carnival glass shakers. I really disagree with that, there are documented old shakers such
as Soda Gold and Octagon. There seems to be no paper trail so to speak concerning most
of these shakers yet, a lot of stories. Stories about shakers being iridized later in life from
both original shakers and from new pieces made from original old moulds.